Ed Miliband reckons the answer is blowing in the wind (Image: Ed Miliband)
As the Conservative Conference approaches and the party ponders the choice of a new leader the Independent Business Network of family businesses, 85 percent of businesses in the UK, has produced a brave report tackling head-on the thorny questions around global warming, the built and natural environments and how these affect the all important matter of economic growth.
This should be a major question for all of the Tory leadership candidates.
Politicians of all stripes have in recent years been pushing both an agenda for growth and a Net Zero, green agenda. In its report the Independent Business Network attempts to square the circle of what are becoming anti-growth policies driven by vested interests and virtue signalling interest groups and politicians.
Net Zero madness was first unleashed by who appeared to place it no1 on his policy agenda and one suspects not least because of the keenness of his family members.
This has been turbocharged (except turbochargers would be banned) by and nicely underwritten by the Crown Estate who stand to gain a pretty packet from wind farms on Crown land, not least offshore.
The package of insanity puts Britain in a leading position in a world where nobody is following. Producing only two percent of global emissions and therefore irrelevant to , any measures which cost wealth or economic growth are effectively simply exporting pollution, jobs and wealth to other countries that are not following our agenda.
The catalogue of delusion includes removing support from pensioners while generating the highest electricity prices in the world for both consumers and industry with all the consequences of that for the and personal wealth and wellbeing.
Then there is the attempt to drive behaviour towards ineffective, expensive and impractical heat pumps by taxing well tried and tested gas boilers out of existence. Try putting a in a terraced house in the cold north of England!
Extinction Rebellion protest against fossil fuels (Image: PA)
There is the absurdity of importing gas from overseas at high prices when we have ample supplies under our feet and accessible in Britain. The same applies to oil. Of course an expensive gas system would need to be maintained for when the wind is not blowing even if wind was anywhere near 100 percent of energy supply — it is miles off.
The forced scrapping of petrol cars in favour of impractical, very expensive and unpopular Electric Vehicles is another example of the almost religious status of “green”, but the Green Inquision takes no account of the terrible conditions inherent in mining minerals for batteries nor the challenge of disposing of toxic batteries.
The IBN report sets out a managed and sensible approach focusing on clean nuclear energy development amortised over the long life (by comparison with turbines) of nuclear coupled with fracked gas, and home insulation. Also the obvious opportunity of hybrid cars and hydrogen. Really the car issue should just be left to consumer choice rather than the dictats of the new Marxism.
The report also tackles the thorny issues of house building in the built environment and the rural landscape. In this instance the vested interests are NIMBYs who are refusing to allow the next generation access to a share in society through home ownership. Just as the killing of fracking is driving high energy prices, the house building conundrum is not a simple one. For a start it is partially linked to alarmingly high levels of gross migration driving demand.
It also requires sufficiently high levels of tradespeople to build homes, a problem made much worse by the mythology of ’s education con. We need far many more apprentices who earn money than college students who run up debt on useless courses, debt which will likely fall to the taxpayer in the end. Hidden, off the balance sheet, public debt, as pernicious as public finance initiatives, another Blair/Brown legacy.
Having got past all these issues however, there is the question of a planning regime in the UK which would always prefer to say “no”. A bats*** crazy environmental assessment regime obsessed with newts and bats, wetlands and green belts.
This latter desperately needs revisiting. Green belts were meant to give access to the countryside, they do not. They have doubled since first invented. Much green belt land is grey and could be built on. The most beautiful townscapes and country villages and towns were constructed before planning was invented.
They would probably be turned down by current planners who seem hell bent on Britain becoming a living museum rather than a vibrant economy and landscape with the highly populated rural areas that used to exist during the Industrial Revolution and before.
House development also requires infrastructure: , road and rail; shops, pharmacies and GP surgeries, pubs and restaurants etc.
The whole red tape industry surrounding house building should be outsourced to the efficient private sector: planners, building regs surveyors, engineers and the rest.
All I can say is good luck , you have no idea the poison chalice you are holding.
The way in which this panoply of anti-growth policy agendas is handled will determine the future of Britain’s economy more than anything that and the Treasury orthodoxy do. Aren’t we fortunate that it is in the hands of Messrs Milliband and Reeves with the oversight of “See here Kier”?
John Longworth is an entrepreneur and businessman, Chairman of the Independent Business Network of family businesses and a former MEP.